Prince William and Prince Harry teased each other while they had their
portrait painted, according to Simon Weston, who was captured by the same
artist

Simon Weston, who suffered severe burn injuries during the Falklands conflict, was recently nominated by viewers of The One Show as the public figure who most deserved to have his picture hung in the National Portrait Gallery.

“It’s a real honour,” the former Welsh guardsman tells Mandrake at the Performing Artistes New Year Speaker Drinks at the Institute of Directors in Pall Mall.

The artist was Nicky Philipps, who once painted the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry. “She told me that they were jibbing each other the whole time, constantly teasing, like typical brothers.”

Weston insists that he will not see the painting before it is unveiled later this year. “It’s like a parent not wanting to know the sex of their child,” he says. “It’s more exciting that way.”

Penelope Hobhouse, the celebrated gardener, has a secret. The sister of James Chichester-Clark, the late Ulster Unionist leader, admits that she stayed with her first husband, Paul Hobhouse, because of their beautiful acres.

“I might have left my husband earlier, but, because I had the garden at my disposal, I stayed another 12 years,” she tells Country Life. “It meant I could garden all day and night because I didn’t frightfully want to see my husband.”

Penelope, who is best known for her work at Tintinhull House gardens in Somerset, has three children by the son of Sir Arthur Hobhouse, the Liberal politician who was the architect of the system of National parks of England and Wales.

Bottoms up on tour

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is the saying, but Danny Care and his fellow Harlequins rugby players have lasting mementoes of their trip to Sin City.

“We had a few sherbets and thought it would be a good idea to get a team tattoo,” the England scrum-half tells Mandrake at the Nordoff Robbins Six Nations Championship Rugby Dinner, at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Mayfair.

“Ugo Monye decided it would be a good idea to get 'Elite’ across our arses. Because of social media these days we threw a hashtag in.”

Winning girls over?

Richard E Grant was flattered to be asked to appear in the new series of the hit American television series Girls. The star of Withnail and I has discovered, however, that his fan base is smaller than he had hoped.

“I’ve been around for a long time and a woman came up to me in the supermarket – a very elderly woman – and she said, 'Hello, are you Richard E Grant?’, holding onto her trolley. I said, 'Yes.’ She replied: 'I don’t like you.’”

Strictly dance off

Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s success on Strictly Come Dancing has put her mother off appearing.

“She was so brilliant it would be weird,” Janet Ellis says at a Wellbeing of Women luncheon at the Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park.

“She was great, but, because of that, I’ll probably never be able to do that now.”

The former Blue Peter presenter adds: “She didn’t know if she could dance or not and she absolutely proved she could, so I don’t know if I’d be any good, but I wouldn’t want to find out so publicly.

“It would get to week two and they’d be, like, 'Oh, Sophie’s really good at this one, so what happened?’”